Economic growth is clearly unsustainable

Updated15 March 2015 — 1:17amfirst published 14 March 2015 — 7:50pm

Intergenerational report

The report is a political document built on false assumptions. Economic growth cannot continue at clearly unsustainable rates, given climate change and the consequences of overstepping planetary boundaries. Our responsibility to future generations is to leave a world that is sustainable, equitable and hospitable. Sustainability of global systems can be tackled by recognising natural capital and incorporating price signals to guide business and consumer choice. A reduced GDP might be compatible with decreased unemployment, reduced over-consumption and improved family and social life if workers could choose reduced working hours in lieu of increased wages.

We can tackle the debt issue by increasing taxation on the very wealthy, reducing opportunities to exploit superannuation, and introducing death duties. The enormous disparity in wealth today is largely a self-serving construct invented by capitalists in the past 30 years.

Illustration: Matt Golding.

Helen Camakaris, Eaglemont

Ledger is unbalanced

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The report looks at only one side of the balance sheet – the ageing of the population. It does not take into account the rate of irreversible consumption of irreplaceable natural resources, devastation of the environment, immutable production of waste material and ageing infrastructure. In 40 years how much arable land will be left? What will be the state of the Great Artesian Basin and the Murray-Darling river system? Will there be sufficient fuel for road, air and sea transport globally as industry tries to extract the remaining oil? Can power plants meet the expanded demand for electricity without further impact on the climate? Proponents of the report suggest the next generation can look forward to further material progress. The reality is they will have to cope with the inevitable economic contraction as best they can.

Photo: AFR

Denis Frith, Frankston

Dumbed-down debate

Our pollies have finally recognised what anyone over 60 has known since the 1970s; that there would be substantial adjustment required in aged care health, accommodation and allied services as we "move to the end of the queue". But the best both camps can come up with is work longer (in non-existent jobs, accept less for the pension, and pay more for utilities and pensions thanks to privatisation) and hope the private sector will meet your needs. What contempt after a lifetime of paying taxes. Hockey's solution – driverless cars and better apps. This dumbing down is now to extend to superannuation, where Hockey wants personal provident funds to kick start a housing boom. What balderdash. History indicates that the "No further action" stamp is the only thing employed once the political points are made.

Lindsay Peacock, McCrae

We need bi-partisan policies

What a pity we can't have a "non-partisan" intergenerational report that might recommend some of the major rail, road and other vital services that will be required through, and by, the next 40 years. That would be real governance, leadership and organisation, instead of those essential things being allowed to remain the political footballs they are year after year, government after government.

Ian Millar, Mordialloc

We need to get creative

We need a mature, logical and democratic debate on how we adjust to an older population. The Bureau of Statistics concedes that an ageing population is "inevitable". Big increases in migration can dilute the ageing effect in the population structure by adding large numbers of younger migrants. However, to be effective, the level of migration would produce an inordinately large population.

According to the bureau, with a net addition of 400,000 migrants per year (almost twice the 2007-08 record level), the old age dependency ratio would drop by merely 7 per cent, but the population would grow to 51 million in 2056. These massive growth projections would ultimately cost more than it would to adjust to an ageing population, and would rely on a massive injection of jobs. The solution to an ageing population can't be the same as what caused it – high immigration and a baby-boom.

Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Super strategy for rich

While it is true the Liberal Party opposed the introduction of compulsory superannuation in 1991 ("Hockey flags prying open super", 8/3), it is too simplistic to say the Liberals are "anti-super". It really depends on whose super is being considered. The Howard government introduced several "pro-super" tax incentives that largely benefitted higher-income earners and people who can afford to retire early. In 2006-07, people were allowed to contribute up to $1 million of after-tax income to their super accounts. Mr Costello also stopped taxing incomes drawn from superannuation paid to those aged over 60. However, Chris Bowen's priorities lie with lower-income earners who rely on compulsory super to build retirement savings. He wants to increase compulsory contributions to 12per cent, whereas the government has frozen them at 9.5 per cent for the next six years.

Rod Wise, Glen Iris

Still fighting for equity

Annabel Crabb summed up the state of feminism when she admitted she is sometimes frightened that Germaine Greer might find out she likes doing stuff like "wearing high heels" ("Last word, 8/3). Like other cultural movements, feminism has been rethought and renegotiated by each generation, which is why there are so many different takes on feminism itself – including those who acknowledge pleasures such as shoes.

For me, being a feminist simply means I believe in and advocate for equal opportunity and rights. Like Crabb, I am also bothered that women are more than 60 per cent of graduates but only 3 per cent of chief executives. I am a feminist because I want to live in a world where women have an equal place in it, where decisions are made representatively, and where women's voices are heard and have an impact. International Women's Day reminds us all that women don't have equity and that needs to change.

Lisa French, St Kilda

Too few get a chance

We can all admire the corporate high flyers listed in the BRW Rich Women's list, published to celebrate International Women's Day, and note the talent and drive that put them there ("Women of substance", 8/3). Nevertheless, it might be timely to remember a host of less fortunate women, but equally deserving, in our world today. Let's consider: the many women victims of domestic violence; the young women kidnapped in Nigeria, never to be heard of again; the millions of women on the subcontinent with few economic, political or human rights and, closer to home, the legions of women struggling to balance the demands of home, work and caring for elderly parents. Too few have the equality of opportunity to succeed as they would wish to.

Helen Scheller, Benalla

Adoption a last resort

Since the 1980s, adoption has been rightly practised in Australia as a last resort alternative placement program for vulnerable children unable to live safely with their families, not as a family formation service for celebrities and the middle-class ("Blanchett baby puts spotlight on adoption", 8/3).

Adoption violates numerous universal children's rights: it severs the legal, and often social and cultural, connections with family; and destroys the child's identity. The horrific legacy of the Stolen Generations and the forced adoptions of previous decades has not stopped with the apologies; Tony Abbott is transforming intercountry adoption into a deregulated baby market.

Ever wondered why adoptees don't spruik for easier, faster and cheaper access to adoption? It's because they've experienced the traumatic losses and legacies inherent in adoption. Prospective adopters lobby because they have a misguided sense of entitlement. Adoption, like donor IVF and surrogacy, commodifies children.

Penny Mackieson, Kew

Complete family

I wish Cate Blanchett and her family well. However, critics who bemoan impediments to the adoption of "needy" children from abusive and neglectful families, should look beyond adoption and examine Victoria's system of permanent care.

Since permanent care orders commenced in Victoria in 1992, more than 3686 orders have been granted. So more than 3000 children have been able to live with approved and supported permanent parents, who have full parental responsibility for them, and who love and nurture them, while preserving their identity and culture and relationship with their birth family.

Last year, Victoria's Parliament passed laws with bipartisan support to amend child protection legislation to enshrine the importance of permanency for children's wellbeing. Adoption is not the only, or best, way to provide families for children.

Cathy Burnett, Fitzroy North

Invest in all our kids

Geoff Ryan is right that private schools represent a saving to government (Letters, 7/3). But surely the real issue is the sort of society our education system produces. Most Australians would regard first-class universal education as a right in a wealthy, civilised country like ours, and yet we condemn the majority of our children to an increasingly unequal and socially divisive system. I know of no other country that so generously subsidises private schools with virtually no accountability, to the extent that we now have the most unequal distribution of educational funding in the OECD. In this two-tier system some of the more exclusive schools like those represented by Mr Ryan benefit disproportionately from government largesse. Private schools make a valuable contribution to society and I have taught happily in both systems, but do we invest in all our children, or only those of the already fortunate?

Bryan Long, Balwyn

Bowlers also vulnerable

Simon Taufel forecasts a time when umpires will wear helmets for protection from heavy hitting batsmen (The Age, 8/3). Bowlers are even more vulnerable as they run down the pitch after delivering the ball. A serious event is inevitable unless measures are put in place such as the requirement that bowlers wear helmets and, more immediately, restrictions on the weight and thickness of bats. Fewer sixes, yes. But a small price to pay in the interests of player safety.

Tony Lenten, Glen Waverley

Left hand, right hand ...

Congratulations to John Eren ("The minister of fun", 8/3). A great multicultural story of a person coming from a humble background to become a minister in the state government. How disappointing, then, to read that one of the first decisions he took was to give the go-ahead for cage fighting in Victoria as a "safety measure". Mixed martial arts fighting is a bloodlust "sport" and out of step with modern-day attitudes, particularly when other sections of government are taking actions on one-punch attacks and family violence.